The story of Starliner astronauts not being “stranded” on the International Space Station (ISS) has taken a shameful turn after NASA admitted their week-long visit to the orbiting laboratory could be extended until 2025 and they could return home on the SpaceX Dragon.
Starliner has been an ongoing embarrassment for Boeing at a time when the company has been rocked by a series of air disasters, leadership changes, stock crashes and even a criminal conviction. The first crewed mission was supposed to be a vindication for the troubled aviation giant, but it turned into a cosmic thorn in the side of the coin.
After lifting off atop an Atlas V rocket carrying NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:52 a.m. EDT on June 5, 2024, the mission immediately ran into serious trouble. A helium leak detected before launch, causing several launch delays, went uncorrected, followed by the failure of at least five attitude thrusters and a damaged oxygen valve.
Starliner August
Starliner managed to dock with the space station, albeit with some difficulty, but Wilmore and Williams were not “stranded” much beyond the originally planned eight-day stay, as NASA put it. Officially, Boeing and NASA described it as merely a precautionary exercise while engineers on Earth worked to recreate the malfunctions and assess the best way to get the astronauts home. And the return home would definitely be on the Starliner.
That changed on Wednesday, August 8, 2024, at a media conference attended by Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate, Steve Stich, Commercial Crew Program administrator, and Dana Weigel, International Space Station Program administrator.
Providing an update on the Starliner situation and how it's affecting the ISS, NASA noted that Boeing and the space agency's optimism covers a much more serious issue. While they're still trying to put the best face on things, it's likely that Wilmore and Williams won't be “stranded” on the station until February 2025.
Worse, they may return not with Starliner, but with SpaceX Dragon.
And it doesn’t end there. Boeing’s bacon being saved by Elon Musk is bad enough. The Starliner capsule being abandoned is even worse.
Officially, NASA is examining its options, but those options appear to be turning into a plan. The ISS is notable for its heavy traffic, with crew and cargo ships coming and going regularly, and docking spots booked years in advance. Another visit has been rescheduled to allow Starliner to stay for another month before departing in November.
According to unnamed sources within NASA, the reason for the delay is that engineers have reprogrammed the spacecraft's computers so that it can leave the station empty and autonomously, re-entering Earth's atmosphere and burning up like space junk.
No final decision has been made yet, and it is likely that NASA and Boeing will hope to come up with some technical solutions before the situation decides for them.
It remains to be seen whether this optimism will pay off.
Source: NASA